Hi all, I attended Ardacon 2017 still the UK largest independent sbg tournament which was created and ran by GBHL James Clark. I couldn’t make last year one as my partner was due to have our second child about the same time. So I made this year’s event I was very glad that I got to the event it was awesome. I didn’t do well at all but I still had great fun. There was 118 players not as much as last year but still good.

Now I will do my best to try and tell you what happened with my games short if I can it was long weekend so can’t remember everything. I will name this scenarios but won’t describe (what you have to do in the game) as in previous posts I have done that.

Day 1:

Chaos in Arda is a icebreaker game for a group of players to get to know one another. This was created by DCHL Devin Moreno. My group was of 5 players which made it even more chaotic. So will this game I will describe what you got to do. There is a large deck of cards which each player is given 3 these cards will have buffs and events which changes the game and also to give you points on objective marker’s on the board which are 5. You can take any force you want as long as it’s up to 400pts. Here is what I took the 3 hunters.

My was the smallest force on the table the others were Chris.b-Harad, Marjin-Iron hills, Chris.m-Erebor reclaimed and Mark- New Mirkwood. I did well in this game I got the right cards at the right time and play them well so I actually won the game. All the players on the different tables that won their group were given the Chaos in Arda card’s as a prize thank you Devin for that. After this it was onto doubles, I partnered up with my good mate Ian. Here is what we took.

Game 1 To the death

Opponents Luke & Martin with Minas tirith, Gandalf the Grey and Saruman. We’ve not had much experience with dealing with wizards and in this game we learnt the hard way. Having Minas tirith hanging back taking pot shots with archers not doing much damage. But with the wizards using immobilise and sorcerous blast we couldn’t do a great deal I found the game quite slow and boring to be honest. 10-0 VP to Luke & Martin.

Game 2 domination

Opponents Thijs & Dmitri with Erebor dwarves and new Mirkwood. This for me was one of the best boards made and put out in the entire tournament, if you didn’t know what it is it’s Beor’s house. Definitely one of the best games I had on the weekend it’s getting the middle and smash the snot out of each other. Was a very close game until the last couple of turns where we failed courage tests. 7-3 VP to Thijs & Dmitri.

Game 3 reconnoitre

Opponents Jack & Clayton with Minas tirith and High elves. In this game we spent more time picking up boromir and his warriors throwing them around the board. I tried to get one of my trolls off but was sniped by glorfindel. Ian managed to get off black numenorean. But there was more of them than there was of us. 9-2 VP to Jack & Clayton.

So after all the gaming on that day there was a Middle Earth teams seminar with war chief Adam Troke and Jay Clare. The Q&A they did was very interesting learning what’s going to happen with the game in the future, battle company’s coming out at the end of this year I’m looking forward to that. And it looks like at some point in the middle of next year us Gondor players we’ll see some new stuff 😁. When they wanted to answer questions someone said what miniatures would you like to seem brought out Jay said he would like to see werewolves (that could be fun) Adams was more Ents we will have to see what will happen with those ideas.

Day 2

Saturday was the start of the grand tournament here is picture and list of what I took.

Game 1 lords of battle

Opponent Rob with Gundabad. With the force that Rob had on the table I was surprised that he had set up hidden behind the ruins in the corner. So I sent my cavalry around the woods for the back of the ruin that’s where most of the combat happen. I was having to deal with a big troll and BOLG! I did well with my archers taking out all his by the time that had finished he had finished with boromir and his Knights. Ending up with a big mosh in the middle. 9-1 VP to Rob.

Game 2 reconnoitre

Opponent Thijs with Smaug. With this game I panicked because what was on the board and didn’t do scenario. I also had this feeling that I needed to send my entire force to kill the Dragon didn’t end too well. 8-1 VP to Thijs.

Game 3 hold ground

Opponent Jake with Minas tirith hoard and Saruman sorry no picture must have deleted it by accident. With random deployments (maelstrom of battle) both are forces were scattered across the board edge. Jake was using Saruman sorcerousblast very well he didn’t like the looks of how close my cavalry was to his warbands. And I was getting really low dice roles throughout the entire game. I went for a mad rush to the centre of the board trying to use what was left of my cavalry to hold them off. The game went full time and we ended it he had more miniatures in the centre than I did. 12-0 VP to Jake.

Game 4 domination

Opponent Ben with Minas tirith and Gandalf the White. We both put our smaller warbands on objectives and with our arches taking pot shots at each other. Are more hard hitting warbands were on one side of the table smashing one another. Was a very close game Ben managed to get Gandalf on a third marker just before the game ended. 6-4 to Ben.

So another day of gaming ended and we had another seminar with Damian O’Byrne & Tom Harrison creators of SBG magazine. They were having a talk with us about the new release issue 5 which I’ve picked up. There is an article in there which I have read today which I quite enjoyed from Joseph A. McCullough the creator of Frostgrave. Talking about different games to do with Middle Earth that he played from a young age to present date. Damian and Tom also brought along with them the terrain (Dale)that you will see in the magazine which was very nice.

Day 3

Game 1 heirloom of ages past

Opponent Alex with Minas tirith. After putting an objective markers we both made rolls for our random deployment. It didn’t go well for Alex as he had to use his might for him to set his army up in better positions. Alex managed to find the Relic with that are used most of my smaller warbands to tie up his force am I sent the cavalry in to do it’s work. I managed to get off the warrior holding the Relic also putting most of my force around the objective and the game ended.1-8 to me

Game 2 to the death

Opponent Marjin with Iron hills dwarfs. Took my time with this game trying to shoot his army and then charging with the cavalry. It kinda worked I managed to get wounds on him first. During the 2nd or 3rd round of combat I managed to dismount Dain off his pig.Marjin called a heroic move but forgetting to surround faramir, leaving himself open in places for me to get in.It was a very grindy game but fun. 4-4 a draw.

And that was the final game for the weekend of sbg would like to say thank you to all my opponents for the games. Things that I should have done I totally forgot to use boromir’s horn of gondor that would have changed a few things. Next time I think I should put a wizard in at some points. With the two finalists Tom Harrison & David Reid playing. David Clubley grab a couple of us to play a game of kings of Tokyo entertaining game where we sat around had a chinwag about our games and players we had over the weekend.

Would like to say a very big thanks to James Clark (and his team) for putting on the events and running it it went very well. For anyone who sat on the fence about going you should go just for the experience. If you don’t like it you don’t have to go again. At the event there was generationshift, Games Workshop and steamforge. All willing to share there hobby interests and game. Oh just remembered this lots Middle Earth Models.